The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of Elizabeth Taylor

406 Pages·2011·2.43 MB·English

by  Ellis Amburn

The Most Beautiful
Woman in the World
The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
Updated with two new chapters,
1932–2011
E A
LLIS MBURN
To my sister, Lu Bradbury
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
—WORDSWORTH
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
—SHAKESPEARE
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph

Introduction to the New, Updated Edition
Preface

Chapter 1 - Discovering Boys: A MIXED BLESSING
Chapter 2 - Montgomery Clift: UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Chapter 3 - Sexual, A-Loving Husbands: NICKY HILTON AND
MICHAEL WILDING
Chapter 4 - Loving, A-Sexual Partners: JAMES DEAN AND
ROCK HUDSON
Chapter 5 - Mike Todd: A 414-DAY JOYRIDE
Chapter 6 - Eddie Fisher: CLOSURE BY INJECTION
Chapter 7 - Cleopatra: THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD
Chapter 8 - The Burtons: ONE BRIGHT, SHINING MOMENT
Chapter 9 - The Jet Set
Chapter 10 - One More Go at Love: THE DIVORCE AND
REMARRIAGE OF STURM UND DRANG
Chapter 11 - Showbiz Takes Over D.C.: ELIZABETH TAYLOR +
JOHN WARNER = RONALD REAGAN
Chapter 12 - Private Lives and Public Bottoms
Chapter 13 - Lesions, White Diamonds, and Rough Trade
Chapter 14 - September Songs: ROD STEIGER, MICHAEL
JACKSON, AND CARY SCHWARTZ
Chapter 15 - There Is Nothing Like a Dame
Chapter 16 - What Remains Behind
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments

About the Author
Praise for Queen Elizabeth
By Ellis Amburn
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction to the New, Updated Edition
When a reporter covers the president of the United States, whose every move is
news, he’s said to be on “body watch.” The same was true when you covered
Elizabeth Taylor, whose every utterance—and every hospitalization—were
front-page news, even in her seventh decade. I was on the Elizabeth Taylor body
watch since my childhood as an inveterate moviegoer, and it continued when I
was a reporter at The San Antonio Light and at Newsweek after I came to New
York. As editorial director of G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the early 1980s, I
commissioned Hollis Alpert to write a major biography of Elizabeth’s husband
Richard Burton, and secured the cooperation of her publicist, and my friend,
John Springer.
The result of all this Elizabeth-watching is the book you hold in your hands,
which first came out in 2000. Since most books have a very short shelf life, I did
not dare to suppose that The Most Beautiful Woman in the World would still be in
demand over a decade later, with editions in many languages throughout the
world. In response to its continuing popularity, my publisher asked me to prepare
an updated version that would tell my readers exactly what Elizabeth was up to
in Act III, the dramatic denouement of her amazing life, that of a Hollywood
actress who held sway as the world’s No. 1 celebrity for well over sixty years—a
unique and unprecedented feat.
The answer, as you’ll see, is by turns funny, sad, surprising, and finally
gratifying as honors began to pour in from the White House and Buckingham
Palace. Hollywood had long ago crowned her as its queen by bestowing two
Best Actress Oscars. Now, in her golden years, the world’s most powerful
governments, disregarding her scandalous past, certified her as one of the great
heroines of our time.
On a more personal level, her friend Jack Larson, interviewed for this edition,
reveals that even as she approached eighty, Elizabeth Taylor was never without
handsome men in her life. Her beauty faded, but her many-faceted allure proved
to be more than skin-deep. In the twenty-first century, her ardent admirer was
Bulent Tugrul, a young Turk.
Equally fascinating in this updated edition are the confessions of legendary
Hollywood cocksmen who wrote tell-all books following the original publication
of The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. Robert Wagner, Vic Damone, and
George Hamilton add zest, wit, and eye-popping surprises to the amorous saga
of the screen’s most notorious siren.
In her seventies, as throughout her life, Elizabeth was rarely without drama,
which was regularly supplied by accidents, medical catastrophes, and the deaths
of close friends like Paul Newman and Michael Jackson. How she coped with
her increasingly chaotic life, and continued to go before the public even when
she was crippled and disoriented, is not only a lesson in pluck but may well have
as profound an effect on society as she did when she changed our ideas about
homosexuality in the 1980s and 1990s. If Elizabeth Taylor could grow old and
flaunt it, so could we, and our ageist, youth-obsessed, Botox-crazed culture
would be infinitely the better for it.
Also new to this edition are intriguing details that flesh out Elizabeth’s
relationships with Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, President Ronald Reagan, Zsa
Zsa Gabor, Truman Capote, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Carrie Fisher,
Marlee Matlin, and Maureen O’Hara, who was stunned when Elizabeth stole her
thunder at a tribute to their mutual friend Roddy McDowall. Included as well are
new disclosures about Elizabeth from such stars as Tony Curtis, Robert Vaughn,
and Ernest Borgnine, some hurling laurels, others darts.
Another entirely new chapter provides complete, exhaustively researched
accounts of Elizabeth’s relationship with England’s Queen Mother and
Elizabeth’s investiture in Buckingham Palace as a Dame Commander of the
British Empire. There is an hour-by-hour diary of Elizabeth’s reaction to
Michael Jackson’s death, his funeral, and her heretofore unreported visit to the
Universal City amusement park with his orphaned children, one of them her
godchild.
Finally, the indestructible kind of inner beauty a stricken, seventy-eight-year-
old Elizabeth Taylor displayed during her horrendous battle with a leaking heart
valve in 2011 brings this updated edition to a moving conclusion.
In an industry littered with the premature checkouts of Marilyn Monroe, James
Dean, Elvis Presley, and Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor survived well into
the new century, and into her Senior years, by a simple, touching philosophy: “I
didn’t want to be a sex symbol. I would rather be a symbol of a woman, a
woman who makes mistakes, perhaps, but a woman who loves.”1
In her latest photo, love is what radiates from her ruined features—love for the
paparazzi for still paying attention to her, and love for the public, in the end her
most durable paramour.
Preface
I was in Las Vegas around 1959 or 1960, staying at the Desert Inn, and one
evening I attended Eddie Fisher’s show, which was absolutely first-rate. In those
days, he was still a golden-throated headliner. Later, as I stood watching a poker
game in the casino, I suddenly became aware of Elizabeth Taylor standing next
to me. “Is the show over?” she asked. It was odd—she wasn’t looking at me, but
seemed to expect an answer. I told her that Eddie had been terrific, and she said
she was always expected to make an appearance and sit ringside, but she hadn’t
arrived in time. She could have been talking to herself. Everyone else around us
in the crowded casino was engrossed in the game and took no notice of her.
Rooted to my spot a few inches from her, I couldn’t help staring, and she didn’t
appear to mind. Indeed, she seemed relieved that I was going to let her be, and
not ask for an autograph or take a picture.
The first thing you noticed about her when she was still in her twenties was
that, despite the beauty she displayed on film, no camera had ever done her
justice. Her skin was unbelievable. She had on a simple sun-dress, and I
remember her shoulders being velvety and iridescent. Her coloring made me
think of a rose at dusk. Her manner was appealingly demure—typical 1950s
ladylike poise. Being in her presence, at the height of her beauty, was an almost
religious experience. She was an example of nature perfecting itself, a once-in-a-
generation phenomenon.
We both spotted Eddie at the same time as he entered the casino from the
dressing room area. People who’d just seen the show began to recognize him,
and their gaze followed him as he approached Elizabeth, whom they still hadn’t
noticed. Eddie kissed her on the cheek, and they stood smiling at each other, an
apparently happy young couple, both dark-haired and both shorter than most of
the people around them. The crowd at last realized who she was, and a murmur
went through the room, taking only seconds to build into a roar. Suddenly
everyone around me went ballistic, charging the startled couple. Even diners
who’d been helping themselves at the complimentary buffet threw down their
plates and joined the chase. The casino was an extension of the hotel lobby, and